Archive for the ‘Health and Living’ Category

In an effort to cut costs, The Anvil is asking our readers to draw their own picture today

We all know the job market is tough right now. So what can employment seekers do to improve their chances of getting hired? Well, they can start by avoiding some common resume mistakes that will sink their candidacy before it ever sets sail. They should also eliminate corny or bad metaphors in their writing, though that’s a different post. Tangents that go nowhere are not recommended either.

So what are these resume mistakes, you ask? The Anvil spoke to some leading HR professionals to get the inside story:

Mistake # 6 – Numbering your lists incorrectly

“If you promise a list with seven things on it, there should be seven things,” says Brenda Shinbone-Pepperpaste, a human resources consultant with Everything But Human Resources Consulting International, a phony offshore company. On the other hand, she adds, “no one really puts lists on a resume, so forget that I said it.”

Mistake # 5 – Boasting about all the murders you did

You may be a self-employed serial killer who has managed to strangle and hide the bodies of over 20 prostitutes without getting caught. So bragging about it on a resume makes you look ambitious and inventive, right?

Wrong.

“You don’t want hiring managers to think ‘manual labor’ when they see your skill sets,” says Dan Walkingstick, a staffing expert with Omaha International Train Station. “I suggest that people try to get others to do the killing for them. We’re looking for leadership skills.”

Mistake # 4 – Writing your resume with spray paint on the side of a building

It’s a bitch to get that puppy into an email, says Walkingstick. “Most employers use the internet for job stuff now.”

Mistake # 3 – Leaving a dead bird on the hiring manager’s windowsill

“It’s best to stick with a digital-document resume,” explains Shinbone-Pepperpaste. “We know a lot more about germs these days.”

LOS ANGELES – A U.S. Postal Service employee in California recently underwent a record 233rd cosmetic surgery in his quest to become an exact replica of former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Last night, he made his first guest-hosting appearance on Foxy News Channel, a spin-off of Fox News, and is said to be in negotiations for a regular spot.

When asked why he wanted to look like Palin, Norman “Chubsy” Ubsy said, “At first it was because I wanted to see her naked. Since there don’t seem to be any nudes pics floating around out there, I thought, ‘Hey, I know another way.’”

Ubsy, who is genetically an African American man, says the more he learned about Palin, the more he liked her.

“I’m a gun owner and support the second amendment. I also believe in smaller government,” he explains. “These are things I thought about when they put in the breast implants and removed my privates, and these are the things I think about when I look at myself naked in a full-length mirror.”

Ubsy’s surgeon, Dr. Herbert West of Unethical Plastics, a Southern California fast-surgery center, said changing Ubsy into Palin was gratifying.

“I was particularly disappointed that Michael Jackson died before I was able to finish turning him into the alien that crawls out of the mother ship at the end of Close Encounters,” he told The Anvil. “When I have a patient who has money yet is clearly mentally disturbed, I want to turn that patient into the freakazoid he dreams of becoming.”

West is also known for using radical surgery to turn eccentric billionaire Roopvani Patel into a Rubik’s Cube and for turning Jesse Eisenberg from the Guy Who Reminds People of Michael Cera into Jesse Eisenberg.

Ubsy says he is not fazed by all the criticism. “I’ve got other things to worry about. Now that I look like Palin, I’m trying real hard to unlearn everything I know about civics and geopolitics and replace it with winks and snark.”

The surgeries cost Ubsy a combined 1.9 million dollars, a lot of money for a postal worker. If his huge ratings from last night’s Foxy News appearance are any indication, though, he’ll be making it back in no time.

“People wanted Sarah in a bra and panties, and I gave it to them,” he says. “I’m every bit the businessman she is.”

The real Palin was unable to be reached for comment, but Hollywood insiders are already buzzing that she and her counterpart are in talks with 20th Century Fox executives to star in a film entitled, Palin Vs. Mecha-Palin as well as two sequels, Palin vs. Mecha-Palin vs. Godzilla and Palin, Godzilla, Mecha-Palin, and MechaGodzilla: Monsters’, Palins’, and Mecha-Monster Palins’ All Out Mecha-Monster War.

Michael Bay is expected to direct.

_________________________________________________________

Greetings, Anvil readers. I’ve done another guest post for filmmaker James Killough’s Pure Film Creative, which you can read here. Check it out and tell me what you think, but please note the content there is a bit edgier.

NEW YORK – Consumer electronics giant Crapple announced the release of their unawaited new multi-gadget handheld device, the StupidPhone, in New York City today. Company CEO Potsie Weber was on hand to explain the features, but he appeared to be intoxicated and forgot what they were.

“Uuuuuhhhh,” he told reporters.

The StupidPhone, which replaces the DumbPhone, carries a suggested retail price of $129.99 and, like its predecessor, doesn’t work.

News of the product’s release sent Crapple stocks tumbling even lower, setting a new NYSE record at minus eight dollars a share. Crapple shareholders, already stung by having to pay five dollars a day per share simply to hold the stock, now have to pony up three more dollars.

Investor Pinky Middleton, who owns 3000 shares of Crapple, says, “I already sold my car and my house. Now I’ll need to take a home-equity loan out on my parent’s place.”

Still, he’s not giving up hope. “I’ll hang onto my shares for another year. If they don’t pick up after that… See ya, Crapple. I’m no idiot.”

Most economists and investment analysts consider Crapple to be the worst company on the planet. Indeed, last year, Crapple executives attempted an unsuccessful bid for a hostile giveaway of the company, but no other organization was stupid enough to take it. This, despite many companies being run by crack-headed incompetents bent on losing customers, putting out inferior garbage, and ruining once-respectable reputations, according to economists.

The Crapple organization isn’t interested in all the negative talk, says CEO Weber.

“We made a mistake with the DumbPhone,” he admits. “There aren’t enough dumb people. But there are tons of stupid people. We think this product will really find its niche there.”

Most DumbPhone sales last year were attributed to Crapple’s contract with the U.S. Military, which distributes the phones to terrorists in order to annoy them.

After we gave him coffee and dunked his head in a men’s room toilet, Weber remembered some key features of the StupidPhone:

X-Ray camera

“This is a real, working x-ray machine,” he says. “You can take see-through close ups of your friends’ organs and bones over and over and over again. It’s better than 3D. No other phone does that.”

Q-Tip extension

“At the press of a button, a little Q-tip shoots out and cleans your ear while you talk. Don’t break it though. It’s not replaceable. And remember to switch ears once in a while. You don’t want the dirty one getting jealous.”

North Korean Internet

“We got the parts from our North Korean supplier,” says weber. “So it only comes with Google-North Korea. But you get a nice wallpaper of Dear Leader.”

He adds, “It’s actually the only wallpaper.”

Random dial

He explains, “Whatever number you punch in, the phone dials a random different one. It’s wacky! This feature is always engaged, so it’s always fun.”

NoPhone

“There’s actually no phone service with the StupidPhone. We forgot to add that feature. Next time.”

WASHINGTON DC – It’s no secret that America’s rising obesity epidemic has been accompanied by growing incidences of heart failure, diabetes, and stroke. Now medical researchers are reporting a new, even deadlier obesity-related disease that threatens to become the worst health scourge of the century: Extra-Large Pox.

Unlike its more diminutive cousin, small pox, extra-large pox targets mostly the overweight. The pox can range in size from a tea cup saucer to a manhole cover, depending on the girth of the sufferer. The wounds often pass entirely through the victim’s body, allowing relatives to peak through and wave to someone taking a picture on the other side.

“It’s humiliating,” says extra-large pox sufferer Bertha Quake, 31, who weighed 605 pounds before the disease struck. “My nephews shoot nerf darts through my belly, and I have to just stand there in the middle of the room like a big ol’ Hasbro accessory.”

Since what happens to skinny, pretty people is more newsworthy, we asked Dr. Carl Hill of Miskatonic University in Massachusetts what we should expect if someone skinny and pretty like Megan Fox or Olivia Wilde acquired extra-large pox.

“Wow. You’re talking about entire heads or torsos just popping out of existence,” he explains. “Small pox is bad enough, like a size two maybe. With XLP, you’re talking about a size 16. Even 18.”

When asked just how deadly this insidious demon was, Dr. Hill said, “Well, you really shouldn’t attribute malevolent will to a disease. A virus has no brain, so you’re really just empowering the condition by making it sound so evil, which does no favors for the victim.”

He went on to say, “Think of an illness as,” at which point we stopped recording because he wasn’t saying anything that will scare readers.

A bizarre mutation of extra-large pox has already emerged this winter, which scientists are calling Tron Pox, or TP for short. TP causes it’s victims to be reduced to binary code and disappear into their video game consoles, where they must become part of the cyber action and kill or be killed. The illness is most prevalent among teenage boys, with reports surfacing that many of the victims are attempting to acquire it on purpose.

Adults of all weight categories are susceptible to yet another variation of the virus known as Turbo Pox, which causes no physical symptoms but may result in paranoid fantasies about being audited.

Dr Hill says the best protection against Turbo Pox is to save your receipts.

If all those poxes weren’t frightening enough, a new animal influenza virus is making the rounds in Europe. Just as with Bird Flu and Swine Flu, Loch Ness Monster Flu will probably kill half the people on Earth by next year.

So far limited to one case in Scotland, the disease has already hurt the tourism industry there.

Scotty Scottsmeyer, a loch operator who works the afternoon shift at Loch Ness, tells The Anvil, “So round about every three years er so, aye, Nessie pops ‘er head up, gives me a stare like she’s gonna bite off me baw bag, but she never does, given that we have an understanding. Only this time, a couple days ago, she looks all peelly wally, like she’s gonna boak right there in the water. Her eyes is all crusty and she’s got a snout full of bogie.”

He added, “Ah’m no banger, so Ah scooted right off, had a few bellywashers, and called the CDC.”

An official at the Edinburgh office of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) said Scottsmeyer was “talking gob shite,” which we can only assume means Loch Ness Monster Flu is highly contagious and likely to kill tens, if not hundreds of millions of people this year.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? SEE YOUR NEW ASTROLOGICAL SIGN BELOW AND FIND OUT!

By Lennie

Updated Zodiac symbols. Match yours to the horoscope below!

In an effort to trim the budget deficit, the federal government announced it will eliminate the Department of Zodiac, effectively putting thousands of licensed astrologers out of work and ending the era of industry regulation and oversight. With the massive, 800-billion-dollar spending cut comes other changes as well. For starters, each sign will have a new icon. Say “Bye” to the Bull. “Adios” to the Archer. “Sayonara” to the Scorpion. “Adieu” to the-

[Just get on with it – Ed.]

Which brings to mind one simple question: How many will die because of this?!!

Deficit hawks in our nation’s capital are gloating this morning, but will they be all smiles when the bodies begin to pile up? Because that’s what will happen when unlicensed, back-alley “zodiaticians” start peddling their snake oil, dishing out mindless drivel that, at best, bears no relationship to actual Zodiac science. And that dishing will commence, oh, any minute now.

So what can you do to stay safe in this perilous new era of deregulation and back sliding into sheer quackery? You can get your Lennie-approved Horoscope right here at the Anvil! Don’t be fooled by imitations. Here goes:

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Old icon: Ram

New icon: Bizarre alien life form we can’t understand

Since you tend to be impulsive, you’re at risk of stabbing your lover with a butcher knife. Don’t, because you also tend to do poorly with prison life. Next Thanksgiving, go to Chili’s and get a nacho platter or something else that doesn’t require sharp utensils to eat. And don’t forget to take your meds.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Old icon: Bull

New icon: Car

You are going to have a lot of health problems this year. You thought everything was fine after they took out your gallbladder and did your knee replacement, but it’s only the beginning. Your shoulder is going next, followed by your eyesight. It’s frustrating because you aren’t that old and you’ve already spent a lot of money on maintenance. And with that long stride and size 12 shoes, you wonder why that little Japanese guy can run farther and faster and seems like he’ll last a lot longer.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Old icon: Twins

New icon: Sextuplets

You crave stardom, but you never bothered to learn how to do anything interesting. Your parents and friends say, “Why does someone who wants to be famous spend so much time watching TV and eating junk food?” The truth is, you just like watching TV and eating junk food. You figure you could easily be on one of those reality shows. Which is true, but haven’t you ever heard of pride?

Cancer (June 21 to July 22)

Old icon: Crab

New icon: Lobster

You’re kinda set in your ways, which, frankly, makes you boring. That’s why no one calls you. You never want to try anything new. Netflix isn’t the whole world, you know. The good news is you will be rescued from your doldrums by a handsome stranger who saw your couch on Craig’s List. Unfortunately, he will give you food poisoning the first time he cooks you dinner, and thereafter you will think of diarrhea whenever you see his face. This horoscope is true even if you are a heterosexual man, so that ought to make you reevaluate your life, eh?

Leo (July 23-August 22)

Old icon: Lion

New icon: A wedge of Swiss cheese

You will suffer abject humiliation when you go on Dr. Oz to talk about your farting problem. Dude, what did you expect? It’s a TV show. Did you think your co-workers wouldn’t DVR it? To make matters worse, you will unintentionally say something so hysterically embarrassing that it becomes a pop-culture-smash clip they play at least twice on every single episode of E!’s The Soup for the next two years. Not to mention the 5 million YouTube hits.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

Old icon: Virgin

New icon: Stripper pole

I hate to say this, but you’re the reason they can’t use the Virgin icon anymore. Maybe you should have started getting the hint when the bartender at TGI Friday’s gave you that “Take a number” dispenser. The worst part is yet to come: You know Jesse at Wal-mart, with only one tooth and the yellow spandex biking shorts? I’m going to let you take a minute to think about why I asked that. And when that tiny light bulb goes on over your head and you say, “No way. Not on a million years,” I’m going to say, “Yes way. This summer.” Book it.

Libra (September 23- October 22)

Old icon: Scales

New icon: Scales, but like on a monster

No, your dream of being called on stage to play drums for Rush because Neil Peart got the flu will not come true this year either. Neither will your dream of moving out of your mom’s basement. But truthfully, you don’t really want either of those things to happen, do you? What if you got up on stage and realized you had no pants on? How embarrassing. And where else will you get free cable and all the Doritos and wild cherry Pepsi you could ever drink? No, you’re sitting pretty, when you think about it, and will continue to do so. Thumbs up.

Scorpio (October 23 to November 21)

Old icon: Scorpion

New icon: Jack Nicholson in The Shining

Your planet is Neptune and unfortunately, Neptune is going to get smashed by a giant asteroid this year. Don’t worry, no one lives on Neptune (as far as we know), but whatever happens to Neptune happens to you. It won’t be an asteroid of course. If a giant asteroid hits your head, it’s pretty much going to hit a lot of people’s heads. I was thinking more like a small lead ball being thrown from atop a skyscraper. Just big enough to poke through the top of your skull and shoot out the bottom. So don’t go see the big Christmas tree in New York this year, like you were planning. Sometimes you can beat this Zodiac business if you’re smart.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Old icon: the Archer

New icon: A can of Raid

The Shining is your favorite movie, and you will be pissed when you find out Scorpios have the new Shining icon and you missed it by less than a month. This always happens to you. Remember when you thought your Chinese Zodiac symbol was a dragon? You thought that was so cool that you started studying Buddhism and practicing Zen and all that. Then you realized you were looking at some lunar calendar baloney and your symbol was actually a rat. Stop asking your parents if they wrote the wrong month on your birth certificate application. They didn’t. You are a Sagittarius. Suck it up.

Capricorn (December 22 to January 19)

Old icon: Goat

New icon: A drop of antifreeze (the green kind, not the orange)

You thought you were cool because Jesus was a Capricorn too, though, somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew believing in the Zodiac wasn’t very Christian. Then, in school, they taught you Jesus was probably born some time in March, perhaps six years earlier than our calendar suggests. That left you feeling hollow, bitter, and betrayed, so much so that you became an atheist. Then you met the girl of your dreams and she taught you that you can’t make that kind of choice based on spite or anger. It has to be a rational decision, one way or the other. You may be grateful to her for helping you, but I have to tell you: She’s cheating on you with the guy who installed your attic fan. By the way, this horoscope is especially confusing if you’re a woman.

Aquarius (January 20-February 19)

Old icon: Water carrier

New icon: An angry pink bunny

You were jazzed when you found out your planet was Venus. Venus being the goddess of love and all that. Then you joined NASA and trained for 10 years, determined to become the best they had. How could they say no when you volunteered for the Venus trip? It’s your damn planet, after all. And they did choose you, like you knew they would. Then you got there and found out it’s 900 degrees Fahrenheit and rains liquid metal. What you wouldn’t give for a nice, cold drink right about now. A nice, tall, cold glass of ice water. Mmmmmm. I’m drinking mine right now. Ahhh. That’s refreshing.

Pisces (February 20 to March 20)

Old icon: Fish

New icon: Field and Stream magazine

Your planet used to be Pluto, but you dodged a bullet when you whimsically changed it to Saturn a week before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet. But much like in a Final Destination movie, you can’t escape your destiny. You will be demoted at work. I’d say I feel bad for you, but perhaps you should not have looked at all than online porn when you were supposed to be filing invoices.

Unemployed people quickly forget how to perform the simplest tasks, such as using a computer keyboard

CLAMSHAFT, ID – The results of a study released yesterday by the Belligerent Idiots Society of America (BISA) show the unemployed to be shiftless do-nothings who are unwilling to get off their lazy asses and find work that isn’t there.

BISA president Chester Tool says, “This just proves what I been sayin’ all along: All those millions of people who were employed before the recession hit were only faking at working hard and being knowledgeable. They were just dreaming of the day they could sit at home and collect free socialist money at 1/3 their former salary.”

The study, conducted without the usual distractions of scientific method and legitimacy, took over two days to complete.

“I looked at all them comments on Yahoo,” says Madge Tool, Chester’s sister-in-law, who collected the data. “Everybody was sayin’ ‘Get a job you lazy bums’ and all that. It was pretty convincing.”

Madge relates a personal story that supports her findings, anecdotally at least.

“So I talked to this feller who spent 12 years workin’ his way through school and got hisself one of them fancy PhDs. Got some fancy job for ten years then he gets laid off. ‘Get a job, you lazy bum,’ I wanted to say, only I didn’t ‘cause he looked so sad, like a dog that gets kicked all the time.”

The man from Madge’s story, like so many other unemployed people with advanced degrees, is most likely unwilling to take a hypothetical job at McDonalds, which seems to confirm the study’s conclusion that such people have no work ethic.

In separate study commissioned by the Potential Employers Coalition (PEC), a loose affiliation of American businesses, unemployed people were found to have a shelf-life of no more than 5 months and 29 days.

“It’s really sad because we’d love to hire these people,” said coalition chairman Fred Bigbonus, “but the results clearly prove that, once they hit that six month mark, they’re expired.”

The study identifies progressive stages of degeneration in the unemployed. At six months, all knowledge and experience evaporates, followed by brain liquefaction. At seven months, bones become brittle and subjects become untrainable. At nine months, the entire body melts down into gelatinous ooze, useful only as a toxic sludge to feed chickens.

“It’s tragic,” says Bigbonus. “But… maybe if they weren’t such lazy scum, they’d have gone out and gotten jobs, so I can’t feel too bad.”

Waiting for out-of-work Americans to melt certainly sounds like a neat and tidy solution to the problem of unemployment, but a far greater threat looms: What to do with all the leftover ooze. There just aren’t enough hungry chickens.

“It’s a coming environmental catastrophe on a scale as yet unseen in all of human history,” says Pinky Middleton, some guy from the internet. “Besides the close to 15 million unemployed people, you have millions more who are only working part time. Those folks are losing fingers, ears, toes. Stuff like that. Where are we going to put it all?”

So far, the only treatment for the melting condition (known as Rebar’s Disease) requires the unemployed to kill the employed and eat their flesh, though that only staves off tissue degeneration for a short time and doesn’t reverse it.

“I had no idea when I started writing this article,” says a fake news reporter who declined to give his name, “that it would end with a bizarre reference to the obscure 1977 film, The Incredible Melting Man.”

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, which was first made available to the public in 1960. Despite having caused untold confusion over the years (it doesn’t do anything to control birth; it prevents pregnancy), women have been ingesting the little, round violators-of-God’s-will like Hershey’s Kisses since the day they hit the pharmacist’s shelf.

But while the Pill has brought joy to millions of fornicators around the world, it admits to feelings of emptiness.

“I’m fifty and wealthy beyond my wildest dreams,” says the Pill. “But it’s too late to have children now, and that leaves me hollow inside. I suppose I could adopt.”

Does a menopausal birth control pill lose some of its efficacy? We posed that question to pharmaceutical research scientist Seth Brundle, who was strangely evasive with his answer.

“What are you, freaking retarded?” he asked. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Brundle’s reaction isn’t the only mystery surrounding the anniversary. Trojan Inc, the world’s bestselling brand of condoms, has formed an unlikely partnership in its efforts to undermine the success of the Pill: It’s now working alongside the Catholic Church.

When asked if the company will ever produce that elusive breakthrough condom that doesn’t feel like a slimy rubber sock choking off one’s manhood, Mr. Johnson said, “Like you’d know.”

“It’s not a strange as you think,” says Pope Benedict X of the alliance. “Our guy makes women from ribs, and their guy makes condoms WITH ribs! Ha. I’ll be here all week.”

After allowing crickets to chirp for a comedically appropriate length of time, the Pope said, “Seriously. Sex is disgusting and evil and you should be ashamed of yourselves for even thinking of it. You’re all going to Hell.”

If condoms have made life difficult for STDs, what of the Pill’s impact on honest, hard-working sperm?

“Do you know what it’s like to wake up thinking it’s Christmas morning, only to run downstairs and find out you slept through the whole thing? And your Jewish?” asks a spermatozoon calling himself “Burt.”

He went on to say, “Does that analogy even make sense? I’m operating on half a tank of DNA here, so sometimes I get a little confused.”

Those in the medical profession can’t help but continuing to open their yaps on the subject.

“Why is everyone making something out of nothing,” asks that pharma-jerk Dr. Brundle, who’s clearly insane or, at the very least, unethical.

“Sure, some women don’t respond well to birth control pills because it’s a medication and not all medications are right for all people,” he blathered. “But there are a lot of benefits to most women who take it. For example, it may help clear acne and often lessens the discomfort and intensity of the menstru-”

[Both the writer and I agree no one wants to know about ‘female trouble,’ so we’re cutting it here – Ed.]

PRINCETON – It turns out that hats constructed of tinfoil do indeed help wearers avoid being fooled by government conspiracies, according to a Princeton University study published in the American Journal of Science this week. There had long been anecdotal evidence to suggest as much, but this is the first hard scientific data that appears to confirm the belief.

In the study, researchers had volunteers do some stuff while grad students wrote it down and compared things. The results were startling.

“We tried many variations, and we found the most effective barrier against secret mind-control waves is two layers of tinfoil with a thin, even spread of mayonnaise between,” said Dr. Herbert West, the lead researcher. “Any thicker and the wearer’s own psychic energy cannot evaporate properly, sometimes leading to schizophrenic-like behavior.”

Reaction on fake college campuses was mixed.

“How do we know it’s not a trick?” said Pinky Middleton, a University of Phoenix Online junior majoring in abnormal psychology. “How can WE trust THEM when THEY’RE the ones controlling the message? I wouldn’t be surprised if the tinfoil actually acts as a conductor, turning the wearer into a soulless automaton ready to do the bloodthirsty bidding of malevolent government overlords.”

Middleton declined to be interviewed further when voices told him we were eleven demons named William Howard Taft. However, he was willing to write a note stating the rest of his answer will appear in his manifesto. The 21-year-old then began wrapping himself in Glad Press ‘n Seal.

In contrast, London-based author and anthropologist Mr. Gruber was encouraged by the study’s findings.

“This will make an excellent addition to my book, The World and its Wonders,” he said.

But will the recent discovery resonate beyond the stately lecture halls and grassy fields of academe? Some think it already has.

Two Washington lawmakers, Barney Palpatine (R-AZ) and Todd Maul (D-CA) have formed a bipartisan group called Senators in Tinfoil Hats (SiTH) and say they plan to create a clone army restore order to the US Senate.

“@&^$*# tinfoil!” said former Vice President Dick Cheney, who’s currently serving a 35-year sentence at Maryland State Penitentiary for masterminding the September 11th, 2001 bombing of the Pentagon.

“We were this close to getting away with it, but that twerp Middleton with his tinfoil hat had to rat us out.”

Americans may recall that then Vice-President Cheney detonated a bomb at the Pentagon but accused foreign terrorists of crashing a plane into the building. Despite no photographic evidence, most were fooled until a small number of tinfoil-hat proponents came forward to challenge the official explanation. President George W. Bush endured a very public humiliation at the time, as he had previously claimed the accusations against Cheney were part of a “vast left-wing conspiracy.”

“Tinfoil has a great many applications beyond preventing brainwashing,” affirms Dr. West at Princeton, who also serves on the board of directors for Reynolds Wrap Inc, though he promises it’s not a conflict of interest. “For example, if you cover your head in about ten layers of the stuff during a solar eclipse, you won’t suffer ocular damage. Don’t forget the air hole, though.”

Tell me if this sounds familiar, girls: You finally meet that great guy. He’s sweet and charming, and you actually don’t hate his mother that much. You’ve only been together a week? No problem. He’s The One, so why not move in together?

At first it’s like heaven on Earth. He drops all his interests and friends just to spend every minute worshipping you. Though he looks hurt when it happens, he recognizes you’re right to throw away his Star Wars toys… er, collectibles. It’s time for him to grow up.

By now, you think you’re firmly in charge, but, in fact, you’ve simply been hypnotized by blissful complacency. Only after it’s too late do you notice something is different. Indeed, wrong.

Your women’s intuition tells you he may have found someone else, but you need to know for sure before you make a move. Here are the five key signs he may be cheating, compiled by our team of experts.*

5. You’re reading an internet blog about men cheating

If you have time to surf the internet, you’re either at work or you have run out of ways to take over his life, which means you’ve reached that critical relationship stage called “inertia.” You either need to find a new way to dominate him or get out. Oh, if you’re at work, he’s probably at home f*****g somebody else.

4. He keeps calling you Jessica when your name is Lacy

What excuse did he use? I’m just curious. They always come up with classics. “You remind me of this really beautiful supermodel I knew named Jessica.” That was a laugher. Or how about, “I meant to say ‘gesticulate.’ You know, you should gesticulate more often.” Then you ask him to define ‘gesticulate,’ and he looks at you like an idiot. But you’re too tired to argue, and a little drunk, so you just go back to sleep.

3. He stops sneaking porn

Though you find porn icky and exploitative, except when you watch it (then it’s ok), you don’t really mind him ogling those girls, because they’re unattainable. Besides, they wear tons of make-up, so who knows what they really look like? Girlfriend, you are a complete person with your own spirit, so how can they compare to your inner beauty, which is what really matters? But suddenly he loses interest in adult entertainment. Why? Is he making his own tapes now? Keep patrolling the amateur porn sites, girls. You never know when a familiar face is going to pop up.

2. You find women’s panties shoved behind the dresser

Sure, they’re your size and your brand, but you don’t recall buying the green ones. Do you? You were sure you had gotten the red ones or the blue ones. Then you hold them up and realize how big the ass that fills them must be. And you think, “No wonder he’s screwing somebody else. I’m a fat pig.”

1. You come home and find him in bed, naked, with another woman

You want to believe him when he says, “It’s so weird. I went to bed alone and, when I woke up, she was just lying there. Let me drive her back to the mental hospital.” You want to believe everything he says, because he has that great smile and he lets you call him cute names in public. Plus you put so much work into him, you can’t stand the thought of starting over with someone else.

That’s it, ladies. Pay attention to these five sign and… you know what? Forget the five signs. If he’s a man, he’s cheating. And if he’s not cheating, it’s because he’s a repulsive loser and YOU are the only sad, pathetic wretch who’s willing to sleep with him.

How’s that for your self-esteem?

* Due to budget constraints, our usual experts have been sacked. Our new experts are a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a gallon jug of red “table” wine.